meshtastic-firmware/docs/radio-settings.md

3.7 KiB

Radio settings

We use the same channel maps as LoRaWAN (though this is not LoRaWAN).

freq table

See this site for more information.

LoRaWAN Europe Frequency Band

The maximum power allowed is +14dBm ERP (Effective Radiated Power, see this site for more information).

433 MHz

There are eight channels defined with a 0.2 MHz gap between them. Channel zero starts at 433.175 MHz

870 MHz

There are eight channels defined with a 0.3 MHz gap between them. Channel zero starts at 865.20 MHz

LoRaWAN for North America

LoRaWAN defines 64, 125 kHz channels from 902.3 to 914.9 MHz increments.

The maximum output power for North America is +30 dBm ERP.

The band is from 902 to 928 MHz. It mentions channel number and its respective channel frequency. All the 13 channels are separated by 2.16 MHz with respect to the adjacent channels.
Channel zero starts at 903.08 MHz center frequency.

Data-rates

About

Various data-rates are selectable when configuring a channel and are inversely proportional to the theoretical range of the devices.

Considerations:

  • Spreading Factor - How much we "spread" our data over time.
    • Each step up in Spreading Factor dobules the airtime to transmit.
    • Each step up in Spreading Factor adds about 2.5db extra link budget.
  • Bandwidth - How big of a slice of the spectrum we use.
    • Each doubling of the bandwidth is almost 3db less link budget.
    • Bandwidths less than 31 may be unstable unless you have a high quality Crystal Ossilator.
  • Coding Rate - How much redundency we encode to resist noise.
    • Increasing coding rate increases reliability while decrasing data-rate.
    • 4/5 - 1.25x overhead
    • 4/6 - 1.5x overhead
    • 4/7 - 1.75x overhead
    • 4/8 - 2x overhead

Pre-Defined

We have four predefined channels. These are the most common settings and have been proven to work well:

Channel setting Alt Channel Name Data-rate SF / Symbols Coding Rate Bandwidth
Short range (but fast) Short Fast 21.875 kbps 7 / 128 4/5 125
Medium range (but fast) Medium 5.469 kbps 7 / 512 4/5 500
Long range (but slower) Long Alt 0.275 kbps 9 / 512 4/8 31
Very long range (but slow) Long Slow 0.183 kbps (default) 12 / 4096 4/8 125

Custom Settings

You may want to select other channels for your usage. The other settings can be set by using the Python API.

meshtastic --set spread_factor 10 --set coding_rate 8 --bandwidth 125

Some example settings:

Data-rate SF / Symbols Coding Rate Bandwidth Note
3.125 kbps 8 / 256 4/5 125
1.953 kbps 8 / 256 4/8 125
1.343 kbps 11 / 2048 4/8 512
1.099 kbps 9 / 512 4/8 125
0.814 kbps 10 / 1024 4/6 125
0.610 kbps 10 / 1024 4/8 125
0.488 kbps 11 / 2048 4/6 125
0.336 kbps 11 / 2048 4/8 125
0.092 kbps 12 / 4096 4/8 62
0.046 kbps 12 / 4096 4/8 31 Twice the range of "Long Slow"